


i love you

by DarlingHazel



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Bad Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Reminiscing, Suicide, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:08:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22614610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarlingHazel/pseuds/DarlingHazel
Summary: Steve cared once. Billy wonders where it all went wrong.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington (One-Sided), Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler (implied)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48





	i love you

They’re not really friends.

Not anymore.

All Billy does is get jealous, get angry, and yell. Or get scared, get angry, yell. There’s not much of a difference between whatever starts it.

Steve smiles at Billy, he feels pissed because he can’t be happy too. He gets pissed because Steve’s ignoring his feelings.

Steve hugs him, he gets angry because that’s not enough and he wants more. Tries to bring out his feelings, fails. Steve’s just so fucking blind.

Steve yells back at him or misses responding, and Billy’s whole world crumbles and tears apart and he feels like there’s nothing left for him and he cries and hates everything, blames nothing because he doesn’t have the energy in him after crying.

But they were better, once.

Or were they?

Steve was patient, but Billy was too busy. Too concerned with his own friends or dad to have time to try and hang out with Steve or say his sorries at the beginning of their budding friendship.

Steve listened, but Billy never knew what to say because he didn’t know if he’d understand. Because Billy always says dumb things, and for some stupid reason, Steve always remembers.

But then they had the days where they’d laugh together, talk like friends, smile at each other from across the classroom or vent late at night and find comfort in the other.

Billy wonders grimly to himself, what happened.

Was it Nancy Wheeler coming back, coming onto Steve before Billy ever fully figured out his own feelings and taking Steve away from him?

Was it the way Billy always screamed, always threatened or shut himself off and sent Steve into a downwards spiral? A panic, a breakdown, a fear of losing him?

Was it how Billy called their friendship off more than once, all in fear that Steve would say it’s already ended each time?

Or maybe they just made empty promises in their memories of hanging out together. Maybe Steve’s words were only there because Billy was the only guy his age that hung out with him. Maybe Steve was meant to figure out his mistakes with Billy, and start anew with someone else.

Or maybe Billy was just far too broken.

Or maybe,

Steve was just tired.

Billy thinks it ended on his birthday.

When Steve just talked about himself and his girlfriend, how he missed her after she was going on a trip overseas, and barely did so much as acknowledge it was Billy’s day. It was his first birthday where he had friends.

And all in all, Steve knew the only one that qualified as his friend was Steve.

The only one that should’ve cared, was Steve.

Billy realized now, when they met he saw a Steve that didn’t care, Billy saw a Steve that leaned on him solely because he was the closest fence. Now Steve’s got an empire built around him, friends and family moving uphill and even despite the vents he only gives Billy when nobody else is there, Billy thinks Steve has a lot of balls for complaining to him.

A lot of balls to say that his problems were worse, or that his problems were important now.

Or that Billy should care. Or that they mattered.

So again, Billy is alone.

Sitting in his Camaro looking at a tape labelled  _ FIRST TIME. _

Reluctantly, with trembling and uncontrollable hands, he pushes it in and lets it rewind.

He lets his head lie back on the seat, tries to relax his hurting shoulders and keeps his fingers tight around his box of cigarettes. Feels his legs bounce, doesn’t try to stop them.

Maybe he’ll stop, drive back, get out and go in the house. Maybe he’ll just go back to his bedroom and sleep, and forget about it all. Move on. Maybe he can move on.

And then he hears the familiar smile-filled voice of Steve’s softly speaking in his car.

_ “- recording? We can look back on this in like, five years.” _

Billy hears himself groan from the speakers. Feels his throat tighten at the memory.

_ “Five years? Christ, Steve, mercy.” _

An angelic laugh comes through, Billy’s dam breaks and he buries his cold face in his hands. He sobs wetly, shatters in the cold of night all over again.

_ “Okay, next year.”  _ Steve says. Billy can smell his strong cologne again. He opens his mouth to stop breathing through his nose, he doesn’t want to smell it, and he continues weeping with stuttered breaths through his fingers. Regret and guilt and shame and anger blanket him with every word.

_ “Will we even be friends next year?” _

_ No. _

_ “Of course! What makes you think we won’t be?” _

That stupid fucking voice, laced with innocence and adoration. Billy remembers distantly, how Steve used to brag about Billy’s achievements to his friends. Can almost hear the fondness and pride in his voice again.

His shoulders shake with each sob, and his cries almost cover the voices.

_ “Dunno, what if you find someone better?” _

_ “They won’t be you.” _

He chokes, breathes wetly and thinks with venom how fucking wrong he was to be hopeful of what Steve had said that night. Of course, they’d never last. Billy’s never wrong.

_ “That’s sweet.” _

He drowns out the voices with his crying and running and tripping thoughts, doesn’t try to pause or break it or anything. Keeps his palms pressed against his face, lets his tangled locks get more knotted with the fingers. Doesn’t bother to brush them out of his eyes, doesn’t think about them. Doesn’t want to feel or see or be aware of anything.

Just stays in the car, sobbing harshly, isolated from everyone else.

Even if he wasn’t isolated, nobody would reach out to him.

Because the only one that ever cared, was Steve.

The only one that he ever thought did care was Steve.

The only one was Steve.

He realizes, with his last few shaken breaths, that he isn’t going home. There was never a home to return to.

The voices are still there.

And then he removes his hands from his face, straightens himself and opens his bleary eyes to look at the sharp edge of the grass past the windows, leading into a land where he’ll be okay again. Where the world will finally resume, without a being as wrong as him in its way.

Wonders for a moment, if people would look in the ocean for him.

The car starts.

_ “When we listen to this, we should go to California.” _

_ “That’s a stupid idea. In a year, no less.” _

_ “We could go to the beach!” _

_ “Why the beach?” _

He shuts his eyes, holds his breath. He’s still so, so scared. He’ll never stop being scared.

_ “Maybe you could see your mom again.” _

The funny thing is, Billy never told Steve he’s never heard his own mom say she loves him. But Steve would tell him he loved him. Even if it meant nothing, even if Billy only ever responded once, the other would, all the time, without fail say it again and again-- ‘I love you’. Just a reminder to him that he mattered.

Maybe if Steve never said it, maybe if Steve wasn’t so reliant on Billy or maybe if Billy had said it back more or not at all, if Billy just wasn’t such a pussy with loving someone even if not the way they loved him, maybe, maybe Steve would still be here. Or maybe he’d say it again.

Maybe Billy would matter again.

His mom never showed him how to say it.

He wonders if she ever even cared.

Nobody ever cared as much as Steve.

_ “I don’t think that’s likely. I’m a doof.” _

_ “You know I love you, right?” _

_ “I love you too.” _

And the ocean waves call Billy’s name.

**Author's Note:**

> h... h... i'm sorry.....
> 
> thank u for reading  
> my tumblr is nancywrote for prompts i am so sorry


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